Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:47:41 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] One small step took a *lot* of people
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
  Were it not for John Houbolt, the United States might never have landed
men on the moon.

The engineer, who died on Tuesday (April 15) at the age of 95,
successfully sold the country's space program leaders on an alternate
flight plan, Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which ultimately led to the six
Apollo moon landings of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Houbolt's death was confirmed by a spokesman for NASA on Thursday.

  Before Houbolt began championing LOR as the way to go to the moon, NASA's
rocket scientists, including Wernher von Braun, envisioned lunar missions
of a type now more often associated with early science fiction. In the
original plan, a large rocket would fly directly from the Earth to the
moon, landing on its tail and blasting off the lunar surface for a direct
return to Earth. [NASA's 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]

"They were going to send a vehicle the size of [a 100-foot (30 meter)]
Atlas [rocket] to the moon with absolutely zero help and land it
backwards," Houbolt described in a 2008 interview with NASA. "I said, 'It
cannot be done.'"
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.space.com/25570-nasa-moon-pioneer-john-houbolt-obituary.html>

mark